Holiday Magic (Second Chance)

by Matthews, Susanne

“I’ll wait for you out front.” said Mark stood in the doorway.

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll climb in the truck. That’s how I got here.”

  “That’ll be hard to do, since the boys are already gone. Meg and Sam took the van back.”

  “I can get a cab then,” she answered sharply, annoyed at having been left behind.

  “Don’t get mad at them. This is the way it’s normally done. Eleni usually rides back with me, and we discuss what could be done differently next time.”

  “I see.” The last thing she wanted to do was spend half an hour in a car alone with Mark.

  “I noticed you didn’t have much to drink.” She had only seen him drink a glass of wine with dinner and a bottle of beer during the evening. The rest of the time, he’d consumed water. He had only taken a sip from his champagne for the toast to the happy couple, and had given the rest to Sam.

  “I don’t drink very often, and when I do, I follow staff rules and limit myself to two. I can assure you that I’m quite sober.”

  It’s too bad he hadn’t followed that rule when he’d had his bachelor party.

  She would never be able to get that memory out of her mind, and no matter how many times it replayed itself, she couldn’t understand why Mark had done such a thing, and with Lucy of all people.

  She could never figure out how or why he had ended up in her bridesmaid’s bed that night, but she had refused to listen to anyone at the time. He’d still been asleep when she had walked into the bedroom, and the sight of him on top of the sheets, had made her drop the glass jar of orange juice she had held in her hands. The sound of shattering glass had woken him from his drunken stupor, and from the lop-sided grin he had given her and the response of his body, at any other time, she would have sworn the sight of her had pleased him. That’s how she’d found him, buck naked, hard as a rock, in another woman’s bed. The sight of Lucy, the sheet falling away to reveal a skimpy negligee, had been more than she could handle.

  She had been so hurt and so angry. She had gone ballistic, hurled obscenities at them both, and stormed out of the room. Lucy had yelled something at her, but she had been too upset to hear the words. Somehow, she had eventually found her way to her apartment, made the calls to cancel the wedding, and booked a train ticket to New York. She had left a message on the phone for Eleni, promising to call and tell her where she was as soon as she could, and had been gone by suppertime.

  She had checked into the Plaza Hotel, the last place she had stayed with her family years before, and remained in her room for three days, crying her heart out, until she had managed to get a grip on herself. She knew the woman who made up the room had been concerned about her, and was grateful, in hindsight, that she hadn’t called the police. It was true she had felt like dying, but she hadn’t been planning to do the deed herself. She had called Eleni and the realtor on the same day. She hadn’t returned to Philadelphia until now.

  Chapter Five

  If she waited for a cab, there was no telling how much longer she would be here. It would be churlish to refuse, and she was dead tired.

  “Let me get my coat.” She walked over to the cloak room. Hers was the last one there. Mark had followed her and took it from the hanger holding it out for her. She shivered when his hand brushed against her neck.

  Mark moved ahead of her and opened the door. The valet had brought his car around, and held open the passenger door for her. Mark tipped him and got in the car. The engine was running and the black Lexus, the car they had purchased together the week before his bachelor party, pulled away smoothly from the curb.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t get another car,” she said, automatically fastening her seat belt.

  “This one works fine. It has an excellent safety record, and I didn’t see the need for another one.”

  “I thought you might have wanted something sportier.” She remembered their discussion before they had selected this vehicle. It had been chosen because it would make a good family car, and they had hoped to have a child within the year.

  “It suits my needs.”

  The radio was tuned to an easy listening station, the one that had been her favorite, and she let the car’s warmth and the music lull her. Mark had always been a good driver, and she felt safe in the vehicle with him. Instead of being oppressive, the silence was comfortable the way it was between old friends who didn’t have to talk all the time to be content.

  “Georgia, wake up. We’re here,” she heard Mark say, and smiled. She loved waking up to his voice. His voice! Startled, her eyes flew open. He was holding the door for her.

  “Do you have your keys?” he asked, holding out his hand.

  She removed the key ring from her purse and handed it to him. He opened the door, disabled the alarm, and gave her back her keys.

  “Make sure you reset this. The warehouse is on a different circuit, and they’ll lock up when they finish.” He turned to go and stopped.

  “It was nice seeing you again. I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I’ve missed you. I’ll be in the store Monday afternoon to start the year-end.” He turned and closed the door behind him.

  Georgia reset the alarm and climbed the circular staircase that led to the apartment above the showroom. She unlocked the door and turned off the alarm. She giggled, exhaustion and the emotional turmoil of the evening making the fact Eleni lived in the ‘City of Brotherly Love’ and had more safety precautions than she had had in New York, seem funny. There hadn’t even been an alarm system in her condo, although the brownstone did have a security system on the entrance door. She shook her head at the irony of it, locked the door, and reset the alarm.

  She set her purse and her roses on the table beside the door, removed her coat, and hung it in the closet. She kicked off her shoes, picked up the roses and carried them to the kitchen. Moving automatically, she found a cut glass vase that had been her mother’s, filled it with water, recut the stems, and put her roses in the vase. She carried it over to the dining room table and placed it in the center on a lacy doily that her grandmother had made, and then padded over to the window and looked out.

  At this hour, the street below was deserted. The various storefronts and their displays provided a splash of light in the darkness. She closed the drapes and walked towards the bedroom. The scent of roses followed her. Mark had sent her roses each week, and the scent of these brought back bittersweet memories. She had not had roses in her apartment in three years. She’d even avoided the park when the roses were in bloom.

  All in all, she had to admit that she had survived the evening relatively unscathed. There had been a few tense moments at the beginning, and when the band had played their song, but Mark had cooperated and avoided personal topics that would have made things more difficult. His parting comment had been his only reference to the time they had been apart. He’d had the decency not to joke about the bridal bouquet that had caught her. She had caught the bouquet at a wedding six weeks before theirs had been scheduled.

  She had been surprised to see that he had kept the car they had purchased together. She’d assumed he’d have changed it when he sold the loft. She wondered who had bought it. They had spent months renovating it, had done a lot of the painting themselves. They had scoured Pennsylvania Dutch country for most of the furniture, preferring the hand-made pieces to those you could buy in stores. She remembered the beautiful sunlight and shadows quilt she had had made for their king-size bed, and wondered what had happened to it. She thought of the antique rocker with the matching pads, the chair specifically purchased to rock their children. A sharp pang of regret stabbed her heart, and a solitary tear trickled down her cheek.

  She removed her dress and folded it, placing it on the chair. She’d take it to the cleaners this week. She would talk to one of Eleni’s seamstresses about altering it. No doubt she would need it again before Eleni returned. She noted the blinking light on the phone indicating that she had a message. She pressed speaker and play
.

  Eleni’s cheerful voice filled the room.

  “Hi! It’s me. I haven’t met the elusive Mr. Simmons yet, but he approved all the designs I brought with me and told me to choose whichever ones I preferred. Since he isn’t even here, I don’t understand why he insisted on that stupid twenty-four seven for the duration of the contract clause. I’m going to try to get him to reconsider, so I can come home for Christmas Eve and let you off the hook for the ball.

  “I’ve been assigned an assistant. His name is Joe, and he’s absolutely gorgeous. He spends the day at my beck and call. He even spends his evenings with me if I want to leave my room. We had dinner in the casino’s main restaurant tonight, and then he taught me how to play Blackjack. I won a hundred dollars, and apparently I get to keep it. Mr. Simmons is certainly a generous employer. Tomorrow, Joe’s taking me on a tour of Atlantic City.

  “This place is fantastic by the way. I don’t know if I told you, but the overlying theme is Polynesia. You should see my penthouse. It’s enormous. Well, I’ll let you go. You have my number. Call me in the morning, and we can talk about Thanksgiving. Love you.” The message ended.

  Georgia smiled. It sounded as if Eleni was off to a good start, and so was she. She had gotten through the evening with Mark, and if her body ached to be in his arms, her brain reminded her that that was the last place she should want to be. She pulled the clip out of her hair and shook it loose, put on her nightgown, and got ready for bed. She had until Monday to brace herself for their next encounter. Why was her heart doing a happy dance at the thought?

  ***

  Mark pulled the car into his parking space in the underground parking lot and took the elevator up to the loft. The renovated warehouse held six apartments, three on the main floor and three on the second. He and Georgia had chosen the largest one that occupied almost half of the available space upstairs. They had windows on three sides—east, south, and west. She had wanted lots of natural light when she worked on her designs.

  He pressed the keyless entry and smiled. Georgia had misplaced her keys twice in the six months they had worked on the loft. The keyless entry had been meant as a wedding present for her. It hadn’t been scheduled to be installed until after she had canceled the wedding, but since he had paid for it, he had decided to keep it.

  He entered the apartment, removed his coat, and hung it on one of the antique brass hooks along the wall. He walked over to the corner bar and poured himself three fingers of scotch, half of which he downed in one gulp. He had told Georgia the truth, he didn’t drink much anymore, but at the moment he needed a drink.

  The apartment had an open-concept main room housing the kitchen, dining room, and living room with a gas fireplace. The rest of the main floor was occupied by a den where the fifty inch flat-screen television and sound and gaming systems were located, a powder room, and a laundry room. There was also a large room that stood empty, its south-facing floor-to-ceiling windows making it bright on even the dullest days. It had been designed as a home workshop for Georgia, and had never been put to use.

  Upstairs, a staircase led to a covered patio on the roof with an outdoor spa. He used one room as a bedroom and another as a home-office-gym. A four piece bathroom connected the rooms. The master bedroom, with its en suite bathroom, was exactly as she had left it. The only one who entered it each week was Julia, the housekeeper, who kept everything spotless. The other room, the one intended for a nursery, sat empty and unfinished.

  It wasn’t a home. It was a mausoleum, a shrine to lost hopes and dreams. He had thought of selling it, but too much of her remained within these walls, and he couldn’t let go. Some of his friends claimed that by staying here, he was only punishing himself, but he felt that there was no punishment that could ever help him atone for what he had done.

  He walked over to the windows and looked out at the Schuylkill River. In the blackness he could see her as she had appeared tonight. She was much thinner than she had been, too thin, her lush curves smoothed out, and although she still looked magnificent to him, he knew that he would miss the way she had felt in his arms. Her eyes were shadowed, no doubt from lost sleep over this situation Eleni had put them in and meeting him tonight, but since she had decided to move back, she would have to accept the fact that he was part of her sister’s life, even if he couldn’t be part of hers.

  He could tell she had let her hair grow. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been long enough to wear it as she had tonight, all sleek and smooth, its lively curls, similar in some ways to his own, tamed and hidden. They had joked that their children would have such curly hair that it would be a miracle if anyone could comb it. Her aquamarine eyes had been sad and shadowed. He swore at one point, when that stupid song had been played, that they had brimmed with tears, and he wished that there was something he could do to make them sparkle with happiness again.

  He finished his scotch and decided against another. Drinking had started this problem. It wouldn’t clear it away. The sight of her standing in the bedroom, the mortally wounded look on her face, and the fear when no one could find her, all came back to him as he recalled the ugly incident.

  He would never forgive himself for what he had done to her, even if he didn’t remember doing it. When Lucy had told him that she suspected she was pregnant, he had assured her that he would do the right thing by the child, and had secretly cheered when she had informed him that it had been a false alarm. She had professed her love for him and had offered to help him through his rough patch, claiming that Georgia wasn’t the right woman for him, but he had known better, and politely declined. Within the month, Lucy had become engaged to her former boyfriend – so much for her undying love. She had even invited him to the wedding, but he had declined. He doubted that her husband would want one of her past lovers to attend, but Lucy could be downright crass at times.

  He turned off the lights and headed upstairs to his bedroom. As he undressed, he went over the few words that he and Georgia had spoken to one another during the evening. It had been hard to keep the longing he felt out of his, but he had managed. They had been polite strangers, the clichéd ships passing in the dark that never recognized one another again. Could he survive this way? No!

  Against his better judgment, he walked went down the hall and opened the door to the room they should have shared. Georgia had put so much of herself into this room. He sat in the rocker and hung his head.

  The morning sun found him sitting there still. Somehow he had managed to fall asleep, but his dreams had left him sadder and lonelier than he had been in a long time. He went into the kitchen and made coffee—tar as she had called it—took a shower, and put on his jogging clothes. He left the loft and ran along the river, needing to punish his body to keep from thinking of what might have been.

  There would be no curly-haired, blue-eyed angel waiting to serve him breakfast and watch football with him all afternoon. By the time he got back to the loft, two things were clear—first, he would never get over Georgia, and second, he had to find out what had happened that night so he could get her back. Talking to Lucy wasn’t an option, but he had avoided Murphy’s since the night of his infamous bachelor party. The bar had been a favorite haunt of his, the owner, an old friend. If Murph was still there, he might be able to tell him something that could help.

  He worked on security files all day, waiting for the clock hands to crawl around the dial. It was after six. The Flyers faced the Islanders tonight, so the bar should be full of regulars, guys he had avoided these past three years.

  He parked the car outside the tavern and entered the crowded bar. He didn’t recognize the bartender, but a couple of the men at the bar were regulars he remembered. There seemed to be some kind of party going on, and when he looked over, he was surprised to see that the guest of honor, a total stranger to him waved at him as if they were old friends. He said something to the guy beside him and came over to the bar to sit beside Mark.

  “Well, you look a lot better than you did t
he last time I saw you, the night I drove you home. The little woman keeps you on a short leash does she? As I remember, she was pretty hot! I’ve been in Alaska the last two years. This is my welcome home party. You’re welcome to join us, if you like.”

  “Thanks, but you have me at a disadvantage, I don’t remember you.”

  The man laughed. “You were pretty out of it, and all your buddies weren’t much better. I used to drive a cab. You fell asleep a couple of times on the way to your girlfriend’s apartment.

  “You took me to Lucy’s?”

  “Yeah, some guy handed me a slip of paper with an address on it, and I took you there. I even undressed you, and may I say that you were none to cooperative.” He laughed. “Good thing the little lady had a sense of humor. She tipped well too.”

  Mark had a beer with the man and left as soon as he could. Well, he knew one thing. He hadn’t gone to Lucy’s under his own steam. He’d been taken there, but who was the S.O.B. who had given the cabby that address. He wasn’t really any more knowledgeable than he had been.

  Chapter Six

  Mark stood by the window in his office in the Penn Center, looking down at the rest of Philadelphia’s central business district. He had come into the office early this morning after a restless night. Seeing Georgia on Saturday had brought back the nightmare of their parting, and the scandal had played itself over and over in his mind. What he had learned in the bar hadn’t helped a bit, and he was more frustrated than ever.

  It was raining. Christmas was his least favorite time of the year, the time with the most painful and unpleasant memories. For the last three years, he had managed to spend the holidays with his parents in Vail, leaving just after Thanksgiving and coming back after New Year’s, but they had gone to Australia for three months, and had rented the house for the duration.

  He opened his desk drawer and took out the vacation brochures he’d collected. His last vacation had been a nightmare. The ‘eligible bachelor’ sign he must have worn on his forehead, the one only women on the make could see, had made his stay unpleasant at best. He tossed the brochures in the trash. He’d decided to stay home this Christmas, before he had known that Georgia was coming back, and it was too late to change his mind now.